What comes after the doubling down on a position? A quadrupling? Poker is often the best space for this type of analogy so would it be going all in? Whatever the semantics, the answer was played out over the course of Mikel Arteta’s press conference on Tuesday, which was ostensibly to preview Arsenal’s Champions League tie against Sevilla at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday night. Win and they could qualify for the knockout phase with two games to spare.
It was never going to be about Sevilla. The events of the past weekend saw to that. First, there was Arteta’s incandescent reaction to the allowing of Newcastle’s winning goal against his team on Saturday night when he claimed to be embarrassed and sickened by the “absolute disgrace” of it.
